after a lovely evening at the local pub drinking hansa pilsner on tap (only TWO bottles, aida!!), i thought i might need to lie in a bit longer before our last day. but i was up and ready quite early this morning. filled with excitement and a fair amount of fear of what is to become today.
we will do the reading at 3pm, so between now & then we have a lot of work to do.
we soldier on in the small rehearsal room just making sure that we understand as best as possible the texts that the actors are speaking - both the shakespeare & the transcripts. sometimes both are steeped in meaning that needs unpicking and the joy, and sometimes horror, of dealing with strict transcripts of speaking, is the natural traits that each of the men have. so sometimes, the train of thought changes mid-sentence. sometimes much of what is said was not understandable & some times it needs a visual cue to make sense.
all of this the actors have to deal with and make their own. over the last two weeks, they have seen short pieces of the interviews in order to get a small sense of the men whom they are portraying. i dont know how much of the mannerisms or speech patterns they are able to pick up with such a short amount of time to work, but it is a bit errie how similar some of the interpretations are. i guess that is the skill of the actor - try to pick up on the little things that the men do in order to ground their characterisation, but then sell it as well. dont 'apologise' for the protrayal, but revel in it so we begin to think that, 'yes, that IS how michael speaks or andrew or kathy.....'
we make it to the main stage for a speed through rehearsal. we dont even get through the entire script before we need to clear the space for the afternoon's reading. saths is back to view the play as well as participate in a second interview with the drama students.
i hope he enjoys the show......
i briefly introduce the piece and the actors take the stage. although i KNOW they have not rehearsed it often, as skilled actors, they make it look as though it has been throughly rehearsed. they are constantly in tune with each other to make sure the piece works as best as possible and to service the script. they do an excellent job with a rough script.
i briefly speak with saths afterwards who, for now, only has one note - and that is the pronunciation of sonny's last name, which i have never been able to get right so was unable to definitively tell dan (who portrays him).
